21 April, 2010

Here is a sneak peak of the Grand Cru 110bcd crank due in mid-summer. This rendering is not 100% accurate, but it's very close. The rings will be 48/34 and there will also be a triple version later. The crank is cold forged and the rings are full CNC 7075 alloy, so the rings should be super durable. The Q-factor is about 139mm and weight is around 670g. The price will be around $190. This crank will be one of two Grand Cru cranks; the other is the 50.4 bcd version. You like?

I am not quite sure about the outer ring, though - I think it would look better if the arm joined the ring with a Y joint, rather than a T - ala Super Record. Not that there's a shortage of 110mm rings in this style, mind you.

The Grand Cru cranks are not the same as Electra's cranks. They are made in a different factory to a different design. GC cranks are made for serious cyclists and are of the highest possible quality. They are not just stylized "cruiser cranks".

These look promising. I'm not crazy about the VO logo, and agree with the commenter who said it would be cooler with continuous fluting à la the old Campagnolo cranks. But I guess one can't ignore the pressures of branding.

A suggestion: since you are no doubt bucking up for the forgings anyway, why not make it look as if your logo will be the only one in that oval? The engraved VO makes it look as if you took it to the trophy shop; a forged in, raised, 'VO' would spell committment.M Burdgeps--Chris, I admire your patience in the face of the pushes to make mass-produced products that would only suit the whims of two or three people in the world ('+1 in 182.5, DynaDrive threaded, alpine crank in a brushed finish!' or 'please invest thousands in tooling for a Swiss-threaded BB and HS combo on the chance that Motobecane I bought at the Goodwill for $25 wants an upgrade...').

Any idea what kind of chainlines you'll get with these and say, a 107mm BB? Chainline requirements on one of my bikes have me running an XD double on a 103mm bb, which leave minimal clearance between the drive side BB cup and the crank; i'm wondering if i can get similar chainlines with this crank and get a bit more crank clearance.

I'm not responding as positively to this look as I did to the TA-style. I find this one to be an unfortunate mish-mash of Stronglight and Campy design cues. I find the outer ring to be clumsy looking. I recall a Nervar crank that looked similar, which was also much less attractive than the Stronglight cranks which were its contemporaries. This outer ring is not graceful.

The spider flutes are clearly a Campy styling cue. The interrupted arm flute is clearly a S'light styling clue. To my eyes, the mixture clashes. I would suggest: either do an homage to Campy Super Record, including the "Y" ring design (the airiest and most graceful choice, and in which case the VO logo would move to the top of the arm), or else do an homage to Stronglight 49 or TA Pro (arguably more "classic" and certainly more Francophile, or else do something that is neither of the foregoing. But not a cobbled-togther mish-mash trying to be all things to all people.

Interesting to read the comments re the logo. It sort of looks photoshopped to me, though I don't claim to be an expert. (Just to be clear, I don't mean this as an insult. If it is photoshopped, I don't have a problem with that in this context, since the text says its not final.)

Anon 10.15,I sure hope you are trying to make a joke here--If you are that attuned to chainring sizes, and simultaneously able to isolate this as the one salient factor over, say, tire pressure, the hot dog at lunch, frustrations with co-workers that day, or wind direction, then why are you so cavalier when it comes to a 33 or a 35?And come one--BB durability based on that, and not (just as plausibly) fork colour, biorhythms, whther or not your shoes match your belt, or whether or not you called your mother that day?As I said, I hope you were trying to make a joke.

Did you ever try a photoshopping a logo with the V above the O? I still don't like the logo, the font and perhaps the orientation doesn't look right to me on such a traditional cranks. It makes me think of a facelifted late model car that had a long production run and got a rounded off nose and plastic bumpers in the end. Your logo or sticker looks like something added by a company as a part of a re-design after decades of production with a more attractive logo.

Hi Chris,Thanks so much for doing stuff like this; you're really doing a good thing for the world by making components designed for real-world cycling so much more readily available.

I think it would be great if one or more of these new cranks could come in a 180mm version, either as an armset or crankset, whichever is most sellable for you. Some people really do benefit from them, and the options are quite bad/pricey right now.

The 50.4 would be the most exciting candidate to me, but I realize it might be too doubly fringe to do right at first. Maybe the Velo Orange double?

I must agree with another poster. Very lovely, but it seems odd that in the picture it seems odd that the outer rings goes straight into the arms, and the inner one curves out immediately. I say curved is much better looking! But either way the rings should match in shape, IMHO. How much will just the chainrings be?! I'm really excited about these chainrings!

The only lengths that make any sense financially are 170, 172.5, 175, and perhaps 165. Personally, if I were only tooling up three lengths of a new crankset, I would drop the 165s (sorry to the less-leggy riders out there, but the actual demand is near zero for 165s on road bikes). Even my 5'2" wife rides 170s, and she won't change to shorter ones.

Regarding crank arm failure, almost 100% (yes, I know, not 100%, but maybe 95%) of arm failures in vintage aluminum crank arms occur just above the pedal eye. Flute, no flutes, stamped logo, laser-etched logo, varying shapes and cross-sections, they almost all break at the same place. The famous Campagnolo vintage Record spider cracks almost never cause a failure!!

I'm not quite sure what value a VO 110 crankset brings to the market, since 110's are available. I DO understand what a 50.4 set brings, since this configuration has not been available for some time, it has the advantage of a wide range of chainrings, and the concept is in line with VO's philosophy of comfortable, relaxed cycling.